Lectures & Events

May 2018 Lecture Series

All lectures are from 10:00 - 11:30 AM and will be held in the Spring Valley Building, 4801 Massachusetts
Ave. NW, either in Room A on the First Floor or Room 601 on the Sixth Floor.

Reservations Required

Reservations are required. We email a reminder when registration opens. Registration for members opens at 8:30 am on the Wednesday preceding each week’s lectures. Registration for non-members opens at 8:30 am on the Friday preceding each week’s lectures. Each registrant may reserve one seat. Your name must be on the list of registrants to enter the lecture and you must be in your seat five minutes before the lecture starts to guarantee your seat.

Lectures

Tuesday, May
22 —
Julie KentIn
Pursuit—A Ballerina Reflects on Her Artistic Journey
Julie Kent, Artistic Director of The
Washington Ballet, will discuss the past, the future, and the plans for this
72-year-old Washington institution. Prior to this position, Kent was the longest-serving
ballerina in the American Ballet Theatre’s history. She has returned to her
DC-area roots with a mission: to ensure the excellence of the professional
performance company, to develop the next generation of dancers, to aid the
evolution of the art form by commissioning new works, and to serve the community through robust
community engagement programs. Kent began her training at Hortensia Fonseca’s Academy of the Maryland
Youth Ballet in Bethesda. In 1986, she became a member of the American Ballet
Theatre’s corps de ballet. She starred in the film Dancers
opposite Mikhail Baryshnikov in 1987, became a soloist in 1990, and a
principal dancer in 1993. She has a repertoire of over 100 ballets. Among those
who have created roles for her are John Newmeier, Lar Lubovitch, Mark Morris,
Twyla Tharp, Alexei Ratmansky, Nacho Duato, Stanton Welch, James Kudelka,
Jorma Elo, David Parsons, Jessica Lang, and Natalie Weir. She is married to
Victor Barbee, Associate Artistic Director of The Washington Ballet.

Wednesday, May 23 — Stuart EizenstatPresident Carter, The White House Years
Stuart E. Eizenstat will discuss his newly published book, President Carter, The White House Years.
It is the ultimate insider’s revealing account of the Carter presidency. Eizenstat
calls it a revisionist view. Reviewer Jay Nordlinger says that open minded
readers will find Carter, “… startling, hard to pin down. An interesting man,
an interesting president with a streak of tragedy in him, and a streak of
nobility (and a streak of insufferability.)”Stuart E. Eizenstat was
President Jimmy Carter’s chief domestic policy adviser from 1977 to 1981. He served
as United States ambassador to the European Union, Deputy Secretary of the
Treasury, Under Secretary of Commerce for International Trade, Under Secretary
of State for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs under President Bill
Clinton, and Special Advisor for Holocaust Issues under President Barack Obama.
He is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Harvard
Law School, and is a partner and head of international practice at Covington
& Burling in Washington, DC.

Thursday, May 24 — Judge Milton C. Lee Jr. The Fathering Court Judge Milton C. “Tony” Lee spearheaded the development of the Fathering Court, part of the DC Superior Court System where men returning from prison learn to connect with their children and get along with their children’s mothers. Judge Lee will discuss the challenges and successes of this partnership between the court, numerous government agencies and the private sector to create opportunities for non-custodial parents to become meaningful contributors to the development of their children.
Judge Lee was appointed to the District of Columbia Superior Court in 2010 by President Barack Obama. He is the presiding judge of the criminal division. A graduate of American University and a native of the District, he was awarded his law degree from the Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law. Judge Lee has been a public defender and has taught at the former District of Columbia School of Law, at Georgetown University Law Center, and in the Harvard Trial Advocacy Program. In March of this year, he was appointed Chair of the District of Columbia Sentencing Commission. In his role as law school professor, he has three times received the Professor of the Year award from his students.

Tuesday, May
29 — Charles
Lane American Dream or
Nightmare? Home Ownership Reconsidered
Charles Lane is a Washington Post editorial writer
specializing in economic and fiscal policy, a weekly columnist, and a contributor to the PostPartisan blog. In 2009, he was a finalist for the
Pulitzer Prize in Editorial Writing. He is the author of two books, The Day Freedom Died: The Colfax Massacre,
the Supreme Court, and the Betrayal of Reconstruction and Stay of Execution: Saving the Death
Penalty from Itself.Lane joined in 2000 as an
editorial writer, did a stint as The Post’s Supreme Court reporter, then rejoined the editorial board in 2007.
Previously, he was editor and a senior editor of The New Republic from 1993 to 1999 and a foreign correspondent
for Newsweek from 1987 to 1993.
Lane studied at the Yale Law School and Harvard College.
He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Thursday, May
31 — Amat
AlsoswaYemen: An Update
In a world buffeted by civil war, insurgency,
and political turmoil in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Libya, Somalia,
and Venezuela, there is one country that stands out. According to the United
Nations, the most urgent humanitarian crisis in the world is occurring now in
Yemen. Roughly 80 percent of its 27 million people are in desperate need of assistance. Amat
Alsoswa is a former Yemeni diplomat, Yemen’s first Minister of Human Rights,
Assistant Secretary-General, Assistant Administrator and Regional Director of
the Regional Bureau for Arab States of the United Nations Development Program
(UNDP), and consultant to the World Bank. Alsoswa is a graduate of the School
of International Service at American University and she holds an MA in
International Communications. Her story is a first-person account of the
“forgotten war,” in what was already the Arab world’s poorest country. Alsoswa
is the recipient of numerous awards, including the French Legion d’Honneur,
and, in 2005, was named one of the five most influential Arab women by Newsweek magazine’s Arabic edition.

OLLI does not endorse any of the
viewpoints expressed by the speakers in its series.